What is about to follow for the Miami Heat is not Plan B. No, the injuries this season have taken them well past that threshold. In fact, an argument could be made that they've run out of letters to define alternate approaches.

So with Dion Waiters again dealing with a sprained left ankle, guard Josh Richardson said the team is poised to do what it has done the entire season.

"I think we've been through pretty much everything a team could possibly go through with injuries," he said, "So, yeah, I think we'll be prepared."

The Heat showed as much when Waiters was lost for the night in the second period of Friday's 123-105 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves, increasing their lead by six the balance of the quarter.

Waiters was back at AmericanAirlines Arena for treatment, with coach Erik Spoelstra at the team's Saturday Family Festival charity event saying there was no need for an MRI nor would a grade for the level of sprain be announced, with the team listing him as out for Sunday's game against the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.

"He was in the locker room doing treatment pretty much all night, last night, and early then early this morning," Spoelstra said. "We got on it right away. We'll just have to see how he progresses from here. We're not even grading it.

"Plus, Dion doesn't want to hear any of that. He just wants it to feel better and get back out there."

With a similar injury sidelining Waiters for three games in February, the Heat appreciate that this is no time to stand down, not when finally stepping up into an Eastern Conference playoff seed.

"A lot of the resolve that has been built and the confidence is because of what we’ve had to deal with this year," Spoelstra said. "So we've had this basically all year long. Somebody's out, next man up. Our guys don't blink at things like this.

Former Heat guard Mario Chalmers, now recovered from his torn Achilles, on resuming his career with the Grizzlies.

Former Heat guard Mario Chalmers, now recovered from his torn Achilles, on resuming his career with the Grizzlies.

"It's unfortunate. You felt the crowd? That's how we felt. But you have to move on and focus on the task at hand and our guys have developed that kind of resolve."

Spoelstra said there is no time for a waiting game.

"It's too early to tell right now to put a timeline on it," he said Saturday. "I know everybody wants a timeline. He wants a timeline. He's young and heals fast. He healed very fast from the last one, when he rolled that one all the way over. But there's no way to really tell until we get through this process."

The Heat opened Friday's second half with Wayne Ellington as the starting shooting guard, but it just as easily could be Richardson going forward, and even then perhaps only as a space-holder for Tyler Johnson, who fueled the Heat with 15 third-quarter points Friday night.

"Tyler knew that he would have to step up and make some plays for us and he did," Spoelstra said.

Before this revival that has the Heat as winners of 23 of their last 28 games, just about everyone and anyone was cast in a leading role. And even Friday, when there was a wobble at the outset, it was the second unit of Tyler Johnson, James Johnson, Richardson, Ellington and Willie Reed that established stability.

That's why while there is concern for Waiters, there also is ongoing confidence.

"I think it definitely helped us," Ellington said of the path from adversity. "They were unfortunate injuries, but at the same time now, at the end of the season, you've got guys being comfortable playing different roles. Guys here, they can start or come off the bench. You've got a lot of comfort with different lineups, with different guys being in different lineups."

The value with Waiters is that it afforded the Heat a pair of attackers in the starting lineup, with Goran Dragic and Waiters, and a pair of attackers with the second unit, with Johnson and Johnson.

Now how the ball gets to the Heat 3-pointer shooters might have to change, the Heat having to turn to more "floppy" sets, a shooter such as Ellington working from the baseline off the option of a single screen or staggered screens on opposite sides of the court.

"The difference for me is only with Dion I can play a little bit off the ball," Dragic said. "But now, probably, I don’t know who Coach is going to play. I totally feel fine with Wayne. I feel comfortable with him, especially those floppys. But I'm probably going to handle the ball a little bit more. But I'm comfortable with that."

Because he's done it before, as have his teammates, Waiters having missed 20 consecutive games over the first half of the season with a groin injury, then those additional three the first time he sprained the left ankle.

"Of course we want Dion to come back fast, to be healthy," Dragic said. "But we are comfortable enough that somebody else is going to step in."